Peoples Democratic Party chief and former J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti leaves after filing her papers at Anantnag district in Jammu and Kashmir on April 3, 2019.
National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party leaders visit Sufi shrines.
In the Kashmir Valley, top-ranking candidates of the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by visited Sufi shrines before filing their nominations on Wednesday.
Former Chief Minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, who filed her nomination for the Anantnag seat on Wednesday, visited the 16th century shrine of Baba Naseeb-ud-din Gazi in the Baba Mohalla area of her hometown Bijbehara in Anantnag district.
The shrine is among the last remaining places where whirling dervishes, influenced by Persian poet Jalal ud-din Muhammad Rumi, are still seen on the urs (death anniversary of a Sufi saint).
“This is the first election I will contest without my father’s guidance and support. But I am confident that my people will restore their faith in the PDP. It’s an honour to fight for them,” tweeted Ms. Mufti, after filing her nomination.
Thereafter, she drove 23 km to another shrine of Zain-ud-din Rishi, housed at the top of a hillock in AishmuqamAccording to local legend, Zain-ud-din Rishi, originally born as Hindu Rajput Zia Singh, converted to Islam after her mother’s promise to Sufi mystic Hazrat Noor-ud-din Rishi. Ms. Mufti paid an obeisance at the cave shrine after taking around 80 steps to reach the destination where the saint, according to the legend, meditated among serpents and scorpions to keep Kashmir’s Reshi order alive.
NC president Farooq Abdullah, who filed nomination papers for the Srinagar seat last week, first paid obeisance at the shrine of Hazrat Sheikh Hamza Maqdoomi, hours before filing his nomination.
He had a sahfa (turban) made at the shrine as a good omen, said an NC leader.
After this, he rushed to the Dargah Hazrat Bal, which his father Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah reconstructed to claim back his then lost political stature in the 1960s. The shrine, which houses a relic of the prophet Muhammad, witnessed a major siege by the security forces in 1993, after over 40 militants took cover inside it for many days.
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